


Vitaar

by o_antiva



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: A Grand Hymn Rose, Multi, with love for Welcome to Night Vale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:03:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12009471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o_antiva/pseuds/o_antiva
Summary: The one where the gang hangs in the hideout. Laughing and drinking. Friendly shenanigans. Qunari sex, a vision quest, and a mysterious glow cloud coming down from the mountains. Do not look directly at the glow cloud.For a DA Prompt Exchange prompt that just wanted to see the friends hanging out, having a good time. They probably didn't ask for the glow cloud... no one ever does. Not at first.





	Vitaar

It had been two years since the Deep Roads expedition. Two years since Hawke took the mantle of Lord Amell. It was summer in Kirkwall, and the glow cloud had returned. There was always something weird going on in Kirkwall. You’d worry if there wasn’t.

On the way down to Lowtown, Varric had walked by a cracked porcelain doll crouched on a barrel, who asked, in a little girl’s voice, if he would solve her riddles three. Varric didn’t have time for that, though, and when he walked on by, the doll rotated its head and wailed like the forsaken. 

Yeah, Varric decided he didn’t need that shit in his life. He just wanted to swing by the tavern and drink with his friends. Anyway, with the glow cloud seeping down from the mountains, you didn’t want to hang around outside. You’d be fine— everybody got glow clouded like once in their life— but it was a hassle. No thanks, buddy.

He was just in sight of the swinging sign when Sebastian came loping up from the Alienage. The Chaste Wonder would have stood out even if the streets weren’t deserted, what with that blinding white armor. “Varric!” he called. “What’s happening?”

“Oh nothin’, what’s happening with you?” Varric called back.

Sebastian threw up his hands.

“Relax, it’s just the glow cloud. Happens every two years or so. Maybe three. Maybe some kind of planetary alignment or some crap, who knows?”

“I was with the elves. The hahren told everyone to go inside.”

“Yeah. Everybody here knows to get indoors and wait it out. It’s Hightown where you’ll find all the nobs walking out to look at it. The glow cloud’s harmless, really… but don’t look at it. Not directly.”

Sebastian shook his head. “We dinnae have such things in Starkhaven.”

“Typical Kirkwall, what can I say.” Varric shrugged. “You thirsty?”

“But what of the others?”

“Hey, if they show up, they can have a pint too.” 

The Hanged Man was full up. People who knew better let Varric on through, but it helped to have Sebastian wading through the crowd. His scintillating armor and heroic good looks always made him a target here; people looked at him and saw some freshfaced adventurer ripe for the picking. Some do-gooder come into Kirkwall to fight monsters and save damsels. Even now Sebastian was getting pick-pocketed as he went through the main taproom, but you had to admire the guy, he could pick-pocket his stuff right on back. 

Despite the crush of people, the regulars were laughing and talking like any other day. Same bullshit stories, same bellyaches. Hamish was starting in again about how the foreman dismissed him from the crew last week. Now there was a complaint that Varric could understand. Officially, the foreman fired Hamish for showing up drunk to the work site again, but who stood his ground when the undead were unleashed? That’s right, Hamish. The other men abandoned the construction post-haste, but Hamish had gone in swinging his hammer like a hero. He was getting to the part where Varric’s sympathy dropped off a steep end; Hamish took full credit for the deed, ranting and puffing with tremendous self-pity. 

“It was these hands that fought off the dead! These hands! And can’t they find no work?”

“Funny how you alone saved the day, though,” Varric remarked. “How’d you miss the light-up elf with the gigantic sword?”

“He was there only after,” Hamish scowled. “I’da taken most a em.”

A gnarly-looking man leaned over from Hamish’s right. “Don’t suppose nobody saw YOU there, Master Tethras.”

Varric shrugged it off easy. “Psssht, not a chance. I know better than to mess with that part of town. The damn viscount keeps trying to build on that ancient burial ground. When’s he gonna learn?”

A good bit of verbal sleight-of-hand. Now that the viscount was thrown into the mix, the men began to grouse and grumble all over again. Sebastian caught his eye and grinned.

“Fenris said nothing of that,” he murmured. “But then he never does.”

“It’s a shame. He’s got to give me more material to go on.”

“Hope he’s all right in this.”

“Eh. He knows better than to get involved with that glow cloud nonsense. To be honest, he’s the last guy in this group that I’d be worried about.”

Sebastian traded him a look, then raised his tankard to his lips. “Aye well, at least our Garrett’s in the clinic with Anders today.”

“Yeah.”

“I dinnae know him all that well yet… but if you tell him not to do a thing… “

“He does the thing. I know, trust me.”

“So what happens if ye look at the glow cloud?”

“Visions. Voices.” Varric shrugged. “An overwhelming desire to go into the cloud.”

“And what then? Going into the cloud?”

“You know, I don’t know. Bartrand stopped me that time, so I didn’t get that far.”

Sebastian chuckled. “So you’ve done it then!”

“Yeah, like, once.”

They were carrying their drinks up the dingy green-smeared stairway up into Varric’s private quarters. One of the barmaids was sweet on Sebastian and overfilled his drink by a smidge, so he was taking the foam off the edge on their way up. He did it real smooth. Varric often wondered about his booze-soaked and possibly drug-fueled shenanigans when he’d been a younger man, back when he was fun, before he got religion.

Well. He was still fun, surprisingly, but Varric could stand some more.

Now for some reason, there were green smudges of paint on the walls and steps on the stairs up to the hideout door, whose planks were also smeared with a handprint of the same color. From within a big brassy voice came laughing. Isabela.

Hawke was laid out flat on top of their table. He was in his adventuring wear, the black leather pants and the billowy shirt open to the chest, looking like some kind of renegade or gay romance hero, or both, which was how Varric was trying to depict him in his latest work. Right away, Varric suspected what had happened here; he only had to take one look at the big bastard on his back, arms and legs dangling, his huge shaggy black mane a wild mess, his mouth slack. His eyes were so dilated they looked all pupil. 

There was green paint or something on his face, hands, and throat.

“You went into the fucking glow cloud, didn’t you?” Varric said.

Sebastian said gently, “Garrett? Are ye there, lad?” 

In his magnificently deep beautiful voice, Hawke rumbled, “I have escaped the bonds of this reality. I have discarded the mere limits of this realm. I can show you. I can show you how it is done.”

Varric broke out into a grin. He couldn’t help it. “You dumbass,” he said.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine there, Garrett. A bit of rest will do ye good.”

As if he were a thousand years old, and becoming a tree, Garrett slowly, slowly turned his head to gaze upon his friends. He raised a big paw of a hand, green palm up. “It was beautiful,” he whispered.

Isabela grinned fit to burst. “He actually didn’t go into the glow cloud,” she said. “I know, I’m shocked. He was my first guess. Carver was a close second, though—”

They all looked at Garrett.

“So what’s wrong wi’ him? And what’s all this green then?”

Isabela bit her lip, hard, and then her laugh came out in a giddy rush. “His Lordship went and fucked a qunari, and now he’s got vitaar all over him.”

“I don’t know what that word means,” Varric said, “but he’s like, on our common table! What the hell.”

Sebastian shook with silent laughter.

Varric studied the boneless form of the giant shaggy Fereldan before him. He looked into the big soft glossy dark eyes. “Buddy.”

“Varric,” Hawke whispered.

“Buddy, you’re messed up. You in any pain?”

“Yes… I’m in paint. It’s— absorbing into my skin.”

“No. In pain. Are you feeling all right?”

The man’s lips formed a trembling smile. “It’s— a radiant light, Varric.” He sounded far-off, overwhelmed. Varric reached out and patted his shoulder. Loose sand and sea salt crunched off him.

In a strangled voice, then, Hawke said, "Tell Anders-- tell Anders that I love him."

Sebastian _awwed_.

"I found him wandering on the beach," Isabela said. "Wearing a wreath made out of kelp."

"My crown."

"Your crown." Isabela smirked. "I had to wrestle him back into his clothing."

Hawke sighed. "'m sorry, Isabela."

"No no... I suppose it was worth it." She raised her eyebrows. "Anyway, I brought him here. He doesn't want to go home to his mother like this."

Sebastian chuckled. "I'm sure Leandra would understand."

Varric saw Hawke turn his face away into his shoulder out of shame, like a little boy.

"Hey, bud," Varric said. "Don't be embarrassed. I thought you transcended reality?"

"Mothers transcend all realities," Hawke mumbled.

"So," Isabela continued, "I've done my part. I've steered him here to let him sleep it off or sweat it out."

Varric squinted, then. "Hey, wait, so. This qunari just left him there?"

"Our time together in this reality had concluded," Hawke said slowly, sonorously.

Sebastian couldn't hold back. "As these things naturally do," he said with a shaking laugh. "Did ye have a good time with your big lad, Garrett?"

Hawke nodded shyly.

"I'm just scratching my head how all this went down," Varric admitted.

Isabela took Sebastian's tankard from him. "Knowing you, Garrett, the qunari probably just walked up and asked if you wanted to shag."

Eyes shut, laying prone like the carving of a knight on a holy tomb, Hawke whispered, "He asked if I... wanted to know the truth of a warrior's bond."

Varric hoisted himself up on his chair. "Uh huh, and you said... ?"

"I said... _okay._ "

"Aw. You big dope."

"Och, now don't shame him, Varric. What would ye have done if some qunari lass bounded up to ye?"

Isabela turned on him, then, too, like a shark who has seen a new victim fall into the water. "Yeah, Varric."

Varric knew there wasn't a way to get out of this one, so he said, "I prefer to pick on people my own size."

The massive form of Hawke rumbled with low laughter. Good, he was still partially in a reality where he still laughed at Varric's jokes. Always good to know.

"I think you're laying, Varric. I think if some heaving qunari woman approached you, you'd have done the same thing."

"I can guarantee you I would not have drug-fueled hallucinogenic sex on a beach with a total stranger. How is that a good idea?" Varric put up his hands. "I'm just saying. Who does that?"

Isabela leaned her hip on the table and smiled. "I think you're the odd man out in this room."

Varric glanced at Sebastian.

"Think I'll get the next round of drinks, how's that?" said pious Brother Sebastian in a friendly tone.

"No-- you just all, sit and think about what you've done." Varric shook his head. "I'll get it. Anybody want anything?" As he passed the end of the table, he shook Hawke's shoulder. "You want anything?"

Hawke made an inconclusive sound.

"When's the last time you ate anything?" Varric pressed.

Hawke mumbled. "Meat pie from Olya's." 

Isabela nearly choked on the last gulp from her drink. "You're joking now, surely," she said. "No. I can perfectly picture you eating a meat pie from a food stall when that qunari came up to you. Meat pie hanging out half out of your mouth." 

Sebastian put his face in his hands.

Varric ended up getting him a turkey leg. Some water. Another round of drinks for everybody else. Downstairs, the numbers in the crowd were steady. Nothing too out of the ordinary-- for Kirkwall-- had transpired since then. There were a few more sailors than usual; maybe the cloud had forced them up from their nasty dockside taverns, so they had come up here looking for swill and maybe a fight with the construction men, miners, layabouts, and other, less-categorical characters lumped in to form The Regulars.

When he came back up to the hideout, Varric heard them still going on about qunari women and the merits thereof. Choirboy hadn't had nearly enough drinks yet to start telling some tales from his old Prince Sebastian days. Now that was the Sebastian that Varric preferred.

"You know, I don't even think I've ever seen a qunari woman," Varric said as he came back in. Sebastian immediately lent him a hand with the tankards. He supposed that Varric probably wanted to give the food to Hawke himself, which was right.

Varric waved the turkey leg around Hawke's face to revive him. You could do the same thing with Lady, his mabari and also spirit animal.

"The qunari women don't fight," Isabela said. "It's their army that's here, which is why you don't see them."

Hawke opened his eyes. Without lifting from the table he tried to orient himself to eat the turkey leg out of Varric's hand. Yeah, just like Lady.

"You gotta sit up, buddy." 

Sebastian hmmed. "But I've seen a qunari lass in a sellsword company."

"She was probably Tal Vashoth, which isn't qunari." Isabela waved her new tankard as she talked. "It's all stupid, anyway." 

"So there's no qunari women here at all, then?" Sebastian mused. 

Varric smirked. "No wonder they're all so angry all the time, sheesh."

"Well-- doesn't seem to be a problem for _one_ of them at least," Sebastian continued. He pointed his chin at the streaks of paint over Hawke. "A green one, by the looks of it."

Isabela laughed. "You know, I wonder if it's the same way with the templars. Too many men, too few women, all of them angry."

"Not all of them, not most of them." Sebastian leaned against the wall in an easy, roguish way. "The ones I knew were a peaceful sort."

"But don't they take vows, or some nonsense?" Isabela rolled her eyes.

"No one makes them take a vow," Sebastian replied. "That's for each templar to decide. Anyway, there's a lot of gay lads in the templars, at least in Starkhaven." He said that in the nicest way, Varric thought, nice and bright, like 'good on ye.'

Isabela scoffed. "The ones here seem to want women. I've heard what they ask for at the Rose." 

"Maybe that's how we can fix the Circle here, clear up all this nastiness," Varric said. "More gay templars."

"A fine point, Varric," Sebasitan replied. "Anders will be thrilled at this solution, I'm sure of it."

Hawke sat there, huge and hunched over, eating his turkey leg, still high as all shit. He must be really out of it; he'd love to weigh in on this conversation. 

"In any case," Isabela was saying now, "I'm sure the Fereldan knight-captain is a first step toward this measure... "

Varric snorted. "Just because Cullen turned you down doesn't mean he doesn't like women."

Isabela gave an elegant shake of her head that made her earrings flash in the light. "All right," she said, "but it doesn't mean he doesn't like men." 

Varric considered that. "Maybe you're on to something there," he said. "Notice when he catches us these days, it's always Prince Man Candy who talks him down?"

Isabela leaned mannishly down over the table, and she pitched her voice low. "Ey, Brother Cullen, fancy seein' ye today here in this dungeon. Lookin righteous as ever... is tha a new sword?"

Sebastian laughed. "I dinna sound like that," he said. "Now, poor Cullen, he's only trying to do his job. This city is the worst. Take that glow cloud for instance... "

Hawke mumbled, "Carver says he does massive amounts of lyrium. Massive." 

"Yeah, drugs are bad," Varric drawled. "As you've discovered."

"He has the _saddest eyes_ ," Hawke said softly, in such a voice that would have lent itself to a profound sensitivity, were it not for the fact that he was eating a big greasy turkey leg while he said it.

With an impish smile, Isabela said, "Maybe instead of Anders, you should go for Cullen. You have such chemistry together, and anyway, maybe he'd look the other way on our adventuring."

Varric wasn't sure he could see it. Their interactions mostly revolved around being caught in some dungeon, haunted cave, blood mage lair, or ancient temple. Mostly lots of shouting. Monsters. All at once the memory flashed before him of Cullen and Hawke, knocked back by some trap explosion, grit smeared across their sweating brows, breathing hard as they turned toward each other, their faces mere inches from one another, and Cullen had breathlessly declared, _You are the stupidest rogue I have ever seen._

"Uh, yeah," Varric said. "Sizzling."

Sebastian made a _hmm, not bad_ sort of expression. "I think I could see it, it's a good dynamic, that is. The blond muscle one, and Garrett the big gentle bear of a man. Like a storybook almost." 

____

____

Yeah, Varric didn't know what kind of storybooks that Sebastian was reading, but Isabela made a breathless laugh of pure joy.

"He got a spider off my back once," Hawke mumbled.

"He did, that's a good lad," Sebastian said. "Now I don't want to stir up anything--" (It's a sin to lie, Varric thought) "--but would it not cause problems in the group then. Ye know how Anders feels about templars, and Hawke's own brother works for the knight-captain." Then came the delicate moment where he continued, gently, and with compassion, "And if I might speak out of turn... there's some rumor our Garrett's a mage underneath, and not the buffoon of a rogue he pretends himself to be."

Isabela and Varric exchanged looks.

"You know," Isabela said, "some of us have hidden depths... and some of us don't. Sometimes, what you see is what you get. But we still love you, Garrett."

Hawke was still gobbling on that turkey leg. If you squinted, you could look at him-- wild shaggy mane and beard, big swooping eyebrows, crazy eyes, bulging muscles-- and easily imagine his barbarian ancestors chewing the meat off Tevinter bones.

"Anyway, uh, you'll find somebody." Varric patted him. "This Anders thing. I don't think--" 

"I work with him tomorrow in the clinic," Hawke said, mouth full. "He's so good. A good man."

"He'll come around," Sebastian said. "I see the way he looks at ye."

Anders looked at Hawke the way a cat looks at a dog: repulsed, yet fascinated by some begrudging curiosity.

Isabela sighed. "You know what, just take him off my hands."

"Yeah, you know what, we don't have to talk about this now," Varric decided.

But it was too late. Hawke was jarred out of his turkey leg euphoria. "You.. you're sleeping together?" He searched their faces with a stunned expression.

Holy crap, Varric thought. How did he not know that was going on. "Hey, how's that leg, buddy, you feel better?" 

"It doesn't mean anything," Isabela told him, and regret washed over her face. "Didn't. Didn't mean anything. He's all yours."

Hawke was crushed. He was the only one in the group who didn't know, and now he did. His eyes went downcast and he looked at the turkey leg in his hand more forlornly and more dejectedly than anyone has ever looked at a turkey leg in all of history.

Isabela went to him then, and she set down her tankard as she sat up on the table beside him. He turned to her with such a how-could-you kind of look that Varric's stomach flipped. She stroked back his wild black hair and said, "You know, if anything, I was only the placeholder for his complicated-- and entirely hypocritical-- feelings. We all want you together."

Sebastian was out of the loop for that one, too, and Varric said, "Hey, this isn't the best time for any of this. You know?" He took the greasy bone out of Hawke's hand and rattled it into an empty tankard. "Let's drink some water."

Hawke gazed into the abyss. Isabela hugged him-- carefully. "Oh, my big love," she said. "I thought you knew, I thought we were just all having a banter. Gay templars... glow clouds.. qunari hunks... now I've ruined it."

Just then, Aveline came striding up the stairs of the tavern. Varric recognized the heavy thump of her boots on the boards. 

She banged open the door and swept the room with her eyes. "Who's here?" she demanded. "Are we all accounted for?" 

"It's us here, and Merrill and Anders at the clinic," Sebastian replied. Then, suddenly: "Is Fenris not with ye?" He came off the wall toward her.

"He went with Ser Thrask, Carver, and Donnic," Aveline answered. 

Varric made a face. "Ugh, how is it outside? Should we go?"

"No, stay indoors," Aveline replied. "I've no wish to deal with you if the glow cloud affects you."

"It's not dangerous, you know that, right?" Varric said. "You know it's completely harmless and happens every other year, right?"

Aveline sighed. "I know," she said, "but it makes everyone act stupid and I haven't got the patience." Then her entire face clenched as she saw, for the first time, the state that Garrett was in. Varric used to joke that Aveline's headband kept her skull from exploding.

Just as Aveline opened her mouth, Isabela cut in with, "Garrett's fine, he didn't look at the glow cloud."

"Then what--"

Varric put up his hand. "A separate, but equally silly thing. You know. Hawke stuff."

"I'll go with ye, Aveline," Sebastian vowed.

"No-- respectfully, no you will not." Aveline shook her head. "I've been trying to turn even Fenris back. Please, just, the most helpful thing you can do right now is to remain here and together."

"But--"

Sebastian was the new guy here, so he didn't know yet that you gave Aveline no buts. She disintegrated him with her eye beams. At least, that's how Varric imagined what just happened.

Aveline withdrew. "I'll have the guards give the all clear when the cloud has dissipated. Remember, stay indoors--"

Varric, Isabela, and Hawke repeated, "Stay indoors and don't look at the glow cloud," although Hawke's deep voice sounded so glum in the mix. 

"Don't go in the glow cloud," Aveline added.

Isabela made a mocking salute, and Aveline thudded away.

With a sufficient break in their banter, but not in the sorrowful mood which had now descended, the three rogues tended to Hawke, giving him some water and laying him down. He sank onto the sandy, salty, gritty table and gazed out despondently. He had only newly returned to this reality from his hallucinogenic euphoria, and Varric hoped he would drift off into cosmic bliss once more. At least sleep all this off. Hard enough to deal with relationship drama sober, let alone all whacked out like this.

Anyway, Sober Hawke would articulate to you very maturely and reasonably that his initial whatever with Anders had been just too much, just too quick, and these things happened and it was nobody's fault, although Varric still felt intense guilt for fucking it all up by accident. Sober Hawke would laugh all this off, probably, and go back to his business of being eccentric Lord Amell, managing his mine, continuing his studies, stumbling through adventures, and helping the downtrodden at the free clinic. At least Garrett and Anders could now work together without any weird feelings.

This line of thinking teased something at the edges of Varric's recollection, but he didn't make the connection until too late. 

Initially-- maybe three beers ago-- Sebastian had remarked that Garrett and Anders would be out of all this mess. They'd be in the clinic. Then Hawke said he'd be working with Anders in the clinic tomorrow.

How long had Hawke been wandering around on the beach?

It all clicked into place when Anders swooped up the staircase. He ducked his head to pass through the door, and his face was tight. "Is Garrett in here?" he demanded. "He said he'd be on shift today!"

Merrill peeped in just behind him, and she glanced at them all standing about drinking over Garrett as he lay spread out flat on the table. "Looks like a Chasind funeral in here," she remarked. 

"Unfortunately, he won't be making it," Sebastian said. "He wanted to tell ye, but now he needs to rest."

A hundred different emotions flashed over Anders' face. His body was taut as a bow. "The glow cloud? Honestly?" 

"No," Varric said. "This was before that. He knew he had the clinic today, but, uh, he had a reaction from some--"

"Toxic berries," Sebastian finished.

Anders looked Garrett over, clearly noting the big swaths of green color all over his face and hands and neck and basically most of the exposed skin showing from his roguish outfit. Anders had to be picturing-- as Varric now did-- Hawke sitting hunched in some bushes, eating slobbery handfuls of mind-altering berries, like some kind of stupid Fereldan bear.

Merrill went in around him and approached. She took one of Garrett's big paws in her hands. Varric tried to stop her from touching him, but she waved away his concern. "I know these," she said with much relief. "He'll be all right." Her eyes danced kindly, then. "This is all vitaar then, lethallin? What did you get yourself into this time?"

"That's-- " Anders was still catching up. His lip curled. "Their body paint?"

Isabela just dove on in then. "Yes, our Garrett had a romantic episode with a qunari on the beach. He's here to sleep it off. He won't be going to the clinic today."

"He knew he had work!" Anders sprayed. "We're swamped with people coming in from the glow cloud!"

"Hey, yeah, he knew, but, this was two days ago," Varric shot back. "Look, just let him be. And that glow cloud? Completely harmless. We keep telling you Fereldans that."

"Oh, but people are worried, and making themselves sick," said Merrill. "We'll get by all the same. Let's go back, Anders, and let our Garrett lie in peace."

Anders clenched his fists and then brought his hands open to run back double through his hair. Varric could admit, in an objective sense, that if you liked that sort of thing, he could see why Isabela and Garrett found him attractive. He was gorgeous and tall in this slender androgynous way, and despite his lean muscle and bristle-beard, there was something of his mannerisms sometimes that reminded you of an angry girlfriend.

"Let me have a look at him," he said. "Merrill, this-- substance, these berries, how toxic are we talking about?"

"It's not quite a berry, more a seed pod," she said. "It's a cousin to the blood lotus with similar effect. Most of the poison boils out when you make the paint."

"Most," Anders repeated. His demeanor settled now from righteous fury to an exasperated kind of concern. He was in healer mode, checking Garrett over, pulling down an eyelid.

Hawke's eyes fluttered in response to this stimulus. Merrill peered in at him and smiled a big and friendly smile. "He'll be fine," she said. "Some of the poison remains, but that's the bit that works, you know. We use it in our vision quests." 

Hawke blinked more steadily and gazed up at Anders and Merrill softly.

Merrill giggled. "Did you have yourself a vision quest, then? What did you see?"

"The ocean, vast... and beautiful," Hawke whispered.

Isabela smiled.

"His pulse is racing," Anders noted.

"Yeah, because you're touching him, Blondie." Hawke gazed up like a happy baby, innocent of himself, unknowing of the world around him. Anders looked down at him through a falling veil of golden hair, and Varric thought he could see the mage struggling to keep his frown.

"I love you," Hawke whispered.

Merrill _awwed_. She tweaked his ear and stood back. "Let's leave him be then," she said. "We can manage on our own."

Then Anders said, "Wait, so you had sex with this-- some random qunari? Did you know this qunari?"

Merrill said, "A green one, I think?" 

"So--" Anders halted. The outrage was bubbling back up-- as it inevitably did. "You. You, and then what? He just left you hallucinating on the beach? He left you there?"

"What a bastard, right," Varric said. "Good thing Isabela found him."

"No, no... " Hawke slurred. "I wanted... I wanted to walk on the beach a while. I wanted to go in the ocean. To be free, in the waves."

Anders was trying to parse this, pissed off, when Isabela started in slowly, "Anders... I was thinking. Well, were were talking."

"Gay templars," Hawke said

Anders said, basically with his entire body, "What?"

Oh no.

"Just... really nice, sensitive ones. Gay templars, in the tower."

Sebastian quaked with silent laughter.

"That's what we were talking about," Hawke mumbled contentedly. "Cullen got a spider off me, one time."

Out of a truly classic expression, Anders struggled to say 'what' again, but Hawke spoke over him again, saying, deliriously, "It was on my back."

"We're over, you and me," Isabela said. "That's what I meant to say. Great fun! But no more, sorry!" 

It just wasn't the day for Anders. He looked so taken aback by all of this-- he looked like when you accidentally dropped something like a piece of cheese on a cat's head and it didn't know what to do, it just sort of bunched up. That's what Anders looked like.

"I'm going back to the clinic," he hissed and left. At least he remembered to duck on the way out. Maker help them if he hit his head on the way out like last time. Abomination rage for sure. No mercy.

"Poor Anders," Sebastian said. "Ye could not have done it in private?"

"Every time I do it in private," Isabela said, "I end up f... " She glanced down at Hawke. Delicately, she said, "Forgetting why I wanted to break up in the first place. But there! See! If you want to stick to something, you make it known."

Hawke was looking wobbly again. Merrill cradled his face in her hands. 

"Should ye not touch him then, Merrill, if it absorbs in your skin?"

"Oh, I've used it enough times that it won't affect me," she said, "not in this form anyhow."

Sebastian nodded. "Makes sense to me. All right, then. I'll go spell ye in the clinic."

"Most people are only worried they breathed in the cloud," Merrill said, looking up. "They're all fine, but thank you, Sebastian. I heard you and Aveline were the only humans who checked on the alienage!"

"Ugh. I keep telling you guys, the glow cloud is harmless. You're making me feel guilty for sitting here drinking."

Merrill smiled. "Oh, don't! That's Anders for you! A good man, but self-righteous as anything. Everybody knows you're to stay indoors when the glow cloud comes down from the mountain. That or you make the proper incantations and sigils. Sometimes a sacrifice."

Isabela raised an eyebrow.

"All the same," Sebastian said. He took his leave in a gentlemanly fashion. "How about ye stay inside like Aveline said, then?"

"Well, I don't want Anders guilting me," Isabela said.

"Yeah, too late," Varric chuckled. "So, so what? Are we staying or going?"

"Don't leave me," Hawke whispered. His big paw landed on Varric. Aw, buddy.

They had just set Merrill up with a pint, and she was sitting crosslegged on the table, when some kind of disturbance broke out in the main taproom below. Varric figured maybe the sailors and miners had finally gotten into it.

But then a figure burst into the hideout. It was Carver Hawke, wild-eyed, out of breath, dressed in his templar armor except for most pieces of that armor, so, basically just the skirt and boots part.

Weird that he was completely sweaty bare-chested, no arming shirt, no breastplate, nothing, but he still had his bigass metal gauntlets on his hands. 

"By order of the knight-commander," Carver intoned, "get in the glow cloud."

Did he put the metal gauntlets back on after he took off most of his armor? Or what? 

This was going to bother Varric.

They stared at Carver for a few seconds, no one knowing just what to say, until Carver cracked up. "Come on," he said. "Get in. We gotta get all up in it. Come on."

He looked so excited about it. Varric was happy to see him in such a great mood, but really, what a chump. "Ha, you looked at the cloud, didn't you, Junior?"

Carver grinned with beatific splendor. “I did, I did see its mysteries.”

Varric said, “Yikes, I thought you’d be smarter than that."

"Just barely," Isabela laughed.

“I was a fool before I knew the glory of the glow cloud," Carver told them. "Anyway, yeah, one of the recruits went into it, but, now I know, right? It's-- it's amazing! We gotta go. We gotta get in it. Isabela. Get in the cloud with me."

Carver was just about bouncing with energy. Isabela slid off the table. "All right, puppy," she said. "Look at you."

She danced up to him, and he looked thrilled to have a new convert for the cloud. His pectoral muscles shone in kind of a glisteny wet way-- was he drenched in sweat? Or did somebody pour their drink on him?

"Don't go, Carver," Hawke whispered. "The cloud is lying."

Merrill squeezed his paw and left him. There was a soft smile on her face, a faint blush on her cheeks and throat. "Carver," she said.

"Merrill!" Carver opened his arms wider to pull in both ladies. Oh man, he looked so sticky.

"Carver," Merrill said. "Look at me."

Their eyes met, and Varric didn't even see her do the thing, but he felt the thrumming of her power in her voice.

All at once Carver's grin fell away. "Aw, fuck," he said. His arms drooped, but Isabela side-hugged him all the same. "I looked at the cloud."

Merrill tipped her head and grinned. "So you did," she said. "Don't worry, everyone does at least once."

"Uuugh, I'm such... this is so... " Carver went red. "Man! That fucking guy! He went into the cloud and we went to get him out." 

"I like your new look," Isabela told him, and she patted his cheek as she slid by him. "So, did someone pour ale over you, or did you pour it over yourself?"

Carver buried his face in his hands. "Oh.. man. I don't even. All right, shit. I gotta get back. I don't even know where I left my armor." He looked down at his barechested self. "What are people going to think when they look at me?"

"Gay party templar?" Isabela shrugged.

"Ha, I know, _right_." Carver looked through his hands and then he frowned at his brother. "I was just getting in a fight with a guy in the tower. I was like, man, just be yourself. You want to be gay, be gay. Stop being so weird and mean about it... "

"Exactly, you just have to be yourself," Varric said.

"Carver," croaked Garrett. "You have to... you have to get more gays in the tower."

"Sure thing, I'll let Meredith know." Carver shook his head at Garrett's prone form on the table. "He went in the cloud, didn't he."

"Oh, no, something entirely different," Merrill said sweetly.

"Is that... qunari vittles all over his face?"

"Vitaar, actually." Varric had just learn this word. "Anyway, we have the situation under control, so... wanna get a drink and hang out with us?"

"You're hiding out here so mom won't see," Carver said in the evil tone that only another sibling would know.

"She can never know," Garrett whispered.

Carver shook his head. "I'm proud of you. I think. Living the dream. Wait, did that qunari guy just like, let you wander off?

"It was my spirit quest."

"Wow, what a bastard! You need a better guy than that."

Merrill giggled, and for a split second, Varric almost thought things could be fun again, but then Carver went rigid.

"Oh, fuck," he said. "Cullen."

Isabela's face was the mirror of Varric's soul, that this day was just going to get somehow zanier and shittier all at once.

"What about Cullen?" Merrill asked.

"He got a spider off my back once," Garrett said woozily. "And, he might be gay, I don't know--"

"I gotta go," Carver backed out. "The new guy-- we went into the cloud-- cap'n went in after him!"

The door slammed on the way out, and they all stood staring at one another.

"Well, shit." Varric leaned back.

Isabela made a theatric grimace. "So, what happens if Ser Cullen goes into the glow cloud?"

"I d'know," Varric shrugged. "I mean, shit. I don't want us to have to fight Nega Cullen."

"Who's _us_?" 

Merrill thought about it for a moment. "Do you think if Cullen goes into the cloud, he'll come out laughing and nice? He'll just want to sit and tell stories, smoke some elfroot?"

Wishful thinking.

"All right," Varric said. "I've had about enough of Fereldans doing stupid shit today, cloud-related or otherwise, but." He ambled over to take Bianca from her post. "I can't just let the knight-captain go crazy."

"I can talk him out of it," Merrill said gently.

Isabela reached out to her. "I'm not sure that's the best idea, kitten," she said. "That's about the worst person to... flaunting your talents. Let the templars handle this. They knew the risks."

"But Carver," Merrill said.

Isabela thumbed her face, and then sighed. "Oh, this is going to be so stupid," she said. "Fine. But if I get chopped in half, I'm blaming you."

Varric shook Hawke's boot. "You gonna be all right here, Garrett? You just stay put, buddy."

Mercifully, Hawke had already passed out of consciousness. He lay upon the table like a sleeping king who was prophesied to return when needed most.

...............

The streets were deserted. A strange pallor was cast upon the city. They found Cullen striding up from the alienage, sword in hand. His eyes were dilated to the point of blackness. 

Fenris was backing slowly from him, blade sheathed, his hands outstretched in a calming gesture before him. He looked so little against the hulking form in armor. Yet his face showed only grim determination.

Cullen was saying something that Varric couldn't quite make out, but the deep voice of the elf carried to them. "This isn't you," Fenris was saying.

The knight-captain was heaving for breath, and when he spoke, it was an incantation in what sounded like an ancient form of High Tevene. 

Yeah, this was pretty much how Varric figured it would go down with Cullen. In an abstract, authorial sense, Varric could appreciate the subversion of the whole farmboy-becomes-a-knight-and-saves-the-world kind of trope. It was just tired. Instead, Cullen was the farmboy who became a knight and brutally crushed dissent in an increasingly authoritarian religious organization, all the while slowly spiralling away into drug addiction and madness.

At least, this looked pretty mad to Varric. He wasn't really surprised-- Cullen just seemed like the kind of guy who would snap and go crazy with some kind of magical phenomenon.

The only good thing was that Cullen was alone. Varric always thought they'd have to fight a couple other templars before they fought Cullen. You know, just, boss battle it all out.

Cullen had both hands on the sword now. His face was intense, streaked with sweat. He'd whipped up a foam in the corner of his mouth. Varric couldn't understand the incantation.

Isabela drew her blades. Varric touched Bianca to the street and wedged his foot in the stirrup. He sighed as he nocked a bolt; he hoped it wouldn't actually come to this, but if he had to, at least Cullen wasn't wearing a helmet.

"Daisy, stand back of us," Varric told Merrill gently. She didn't have her staff with her.

Fenris seemed to be trying to convince Cullen to hand over his weapon.

"I can do this, Varric," she insisted.

Isabela tried to stop her, but Merrill slipped forward. With perfect awareness, Fenris turned his head slightly, noting Merrill as she ran up to them, yet holding Cullen with the brunt of his concentration.

Varric saw the templar tense up, and he hefted Bianca, just ready-- but Merrill slowed to a steady walk, and quite firmly, she said, "Now, Ser Cullen, you _stop this nonsense_." 

Cullen drooled foam.

"Now, come along, _come in and have a pint with us_ ," she said. "Just one, you might as well."

Cullen's black eyes bored into her. Then he said, "I might... as well."

" _Give your sword to Fenris here_ ," Merrill continued. "I bet he wants a look at it! A fine sword, he won't drop it. We'll give it back."

Cullen clenched his mailed hands on the hilt. Some drool sucked back into his mouth-- aw, man. "Just-- just one," he said.

"Aye."

Then Cullen sheathed the sword and unstrung the frog. He handed the mass of it over to Fenris, who accepted with the same level composure and a resonant, "Thank you."

"Just one," Cullen said flatly, "I must return to the cloud."

...............

They were all sitting around the table, around Hawke, basically, tankards in hand. Isabela was stroking Garrett's hair in her lap. Varric still had Biana loaded, but she got her own chair. Merrill sat cozied up to Cullen, telling him some sing-songy story, while he stared with intense concentration at some distant point.

Fenris was leaning against the wall. He looked most of all like he could use a drink.

Garrett was awake. "What was it like in the cloud?" he asked, like a child asks what stars are made of.

"It was beautiful," Cullen said. "I was made new."

"I was new in the ocean," Hawke replied.

"No, no," said Cullen, and Varric understood what Hawke had meant by the saddest eyes. "Not like this. We should go, you and I, into the glow cloud. It holds all destiny."

That was a pretty smooth line anyway, Varric thought.

Hawke grinned.

"We should all go for a swim after this," Isabela said. "It would really... wash this day off. You know? This glow cloud ought to be winding down soon."

"It's gone on long enough," Varric agreed.

"How would you like that?" Merrill smiled at Cullen, as though speaking to a grumpy toddler.

"I would like," Cullen repeated, "to go into the cloud."

"Just one more," Isabela said. "Then we'll go."

When Cullen was in the middle of the second pint, he immediately slammed it down. Foam sloshed out of the tankard. Fenris lit up.

Then Cullen buried his face in his hands, and said, "Oh, for fuck's sake," in the most deeply embarrassed tone.

"Is that you, Ser Cullen?" Merrill peered in at him, gently prising apart the gauntleted fingers.

Isabela began to cheer, and Varric lifted his tankard. "Eyyy."

Hawke began to drum his meaty hands on the tabletop.

Cullen was red in the face. "I looked into the cloud. I went into it. Now I feel like a horse's ass."

Varric was giddy with relief. Man, he did not want to fight this guy. "Hey, everybody does it once," he said. "Glad you're back."

Cullen stood abruptly. He took Merrill's hand in a chivalrous gesture. "I thank you. All of you." He grasped for words. "I know that-- in the past, when we've crossed paths out in the-- what in the blazes happened to you?"

Hawke just grinned. "Heh." 

Cullen started to ask, but Isabela cut him off anyway, "It's not the cloud. He was just.. painting."

"That looks like vitaar," Cullen remarked, his brows furrowing low.

"Oh, what's that?" said Isabela.

Fenris frowned.

"Did you get into an altercation with the qunari?" Cullen asked. "Because if--"

"Oh, no no," Varric cut in. "Garrett gets along great with them. Anyway, thanks for dropping by, Cullen!"

The templar shook off a suspicious look, and then he crossed to Fenris, who stood firm, as if at attention. Cullen clasped the elf's wrist in that manly warrior arm grip. "You are deeply formidable," he said. "I am glad we did not come to blows."

"As am I," Fenris said, but his eyes betrayed his distraction. He hadn't reacted to Hawke's state at first; honestly, with all the crazy shit Garrett got into, you just shrugged and went with it. But now that he knew the qunari might be involved...

As soon as Cullen was gone, Fenris demanded, "What happened to you?"

"The vitaar sent me on a spirit quest," Hawke said.

Fenris raised a silver eyebrow, and then he glanced at the faces of the other three. Merrill booped the knuckles of her fists against each other a few times, nodding mischievously. 

Isabela chortled into her drink. "Yeah, guess who fucked a qunari?" she asked, just as Cullen came back in.

The templar had returned for his sword, which Fenris still possessed.

They all stared at each other. Varric gave Isabela a pointed look. Really.

Fenris silently handed the sword back to Cullen. Sometimes he could look so deeply ashamed of his stupid friends that Varric almost sympathized with his judgment.

"The one with the green vitaar, I'm guessing," Cullen said in that no-nonsense voice.

Isabela barely mastered her laughter. She said, waveringly, "What would give you that idea?" as she gestured her tankard at all the green smudges on the walls, the chairs, the tables, basically everything and everywhere that big stupid oafish Hawke had gotten his mitts on.

Cullen strapped the frog back on to his armor. "Well, watch out," he said just as he left. "The green one's a bastard."

**Author's Note:**

> A special thanks to the Glow Cloud, which has drifted over to join us from Welcome to Night Vale. Night Vale is a friendly desert community and alternate universe sister-city to Kirkwall. 
> 
> Please consider tuning into the radio show.
> 
> http://www.welcometonightvale.com


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